all back to whomsoever's

Though it might be considered a little bit petty and un-festive and possibly something I'm still technically too young to do I think my side-neighbour has just earnt his first proper inform-the-landlord complaint about his cretinosity.

The afternoon roads and pavements near every shop were filled, as expected, with the merry clinkling of thousands of pounds' worth of boozestuffs and snacks in preparation for the evening. My neighbour appeared to have done this much earlier in the day and had already left the cardboard packaging of booze and pizzas outside his door by mid-morning whilst the sounds of drunk people playing computer games (or possibly watching some sort of television sports or perhaps singing tunelessly along to something) drifted through the wall. They were still there when we got back from the cinema but appeared to head out in the mid-evening, as evidenced by a larger than usual amount of door-slamming and shouting, though side-neighbour does have the habit of needlessly slamming doors shut unwarrantedly loudly (and slightly wall-shakingly) at normal non-festive times. Whenever I've passed him in the hallway he's always been wearing headphones so probably has to slam things to be able to hear them shutting through the over-loud music. Whilst a slight decrease in the noise for the next few hours was welcome a neighbour heading out for a party only ever means a neighbour returning from a party in the small hours in a distinctly judgement-impaired state. This once resulted in side-neighbour putting on his own loud music at three in the morning in order to attempt to mask the louder music of under-neighbour on one of the occasions when I'd had to call out the council noise team, somewhat fucking up the measurements the noise team operatives were attempting to make.

Someone I assumed to be side-neighbour and perhaps one other person came back at about three-ish, banging and slamming and shouting somewhat but not waking Nicky up and not waking me up as I hadn't got to sleep yet. I almost considered popping out to check that he'd locked the outer door but just checked that the inner door was locked in case any inebriate flat-guests tried the wrong door. I was wearing earplugs but still didn't get to sleep by the time a couple of additional guests turned up at a quarter to four and started repeatedly roughly banging and rattling every available door in the hallway (and side-neighbour's balcony-facing window) in an attempt to get into his flat (the inner door of which was locked) after (reconstructing events from half-heard sounds before I'd removed my earplugs) climbing over the wall to get into the garden to get into the stairwell when it became apparent to their addled brains that the key-holding side-neighbour was far too asleep, pissed or both to respond to the noise of the entry-buzzer, his mobile and the rattlings to wake up and let them in. It seemed to take the combined logical powers and booze-impaired ears of both to work out that his phone was ringing inside the flat and that the door to the bedroom from the hall next to the inner door was open.

By this time I'd got up, dressed and was loitering just inside our door, emerging when the rattling and banging went beyond the level of taking the piss. The inebriants were a dark-haired and eyebrowed person of Londonish accent and another with sort of beige whippy-ice-cream-styled hair who started off sounding generically southern but who drifted into distinct Birminghamity after a few sentences. I requested that they perhaps quieten down a bit and possibly attempt to wake their idiot host up by using the known-to-work doorbell outside the front door (seeing as the one outside the inner door didn't work) rather than batter their way in through the door or window seeing as their pal only rents the flat, that other people would be inconvenienced by the damage and (foremost) that many other people were being inconvenienced by the noises they were making.

By my reckoning I managed to remain reasonably calm and throughout and kept asking them to speak quietly rather than bellowing but they were evidently drunk beyond the point of being able to consider volume. Getting nowhere, I shut the door for a bit but remained within listening-distance as they continued fruitlessly ringing the unanswered mobile inside the flat, smacking the door and hammering at the window. At one point it looked like they were about to give up and head somewhere else after a complicated five-minute discussion about ringing someone else to see if they could crash on her floor. They had their phones set so loud that I was clearly able to hear the other end of this conversation and it seemed that they were clearly told that it would be fine for them to fuck the hell off to this alternative location, presumably considerably preferable to the unheated corridor they were currently stuck in. For some reason they chose not to and continued to ring the mobile and bang the door, eventually drifting into dialogue along the lines of "it's aaonly the little spwing lock... woul'n't tayk mach to barwge it open" and "we could get in frough ve windaow... just break it" and a couple of exploratory thumps at which point I thought it might be wise to pop my head out again.

After further attempts to request a quietening of their activities and a considerably politer than was deserved request to not attempt to break into the flat I explained that any attempt to break into the flat would result in a call to the police but that the station was quite nearby and would probably let them wait in the lobby if they needed somewhere nice and warm to sit. One of them offered to provide identification; I'd already considered popping to fish out my camera to record their leeringly imbecilic expressions for future amusement but just said that it didn't really matter who they were as any damage to the property would be the responsibility of their sleeping host. Despite continued politeness and calmness (I only swore twice or thrice, probably in a reasonably fitting context like "and could you stop hammering at the fucking window before you break it?") they had progressed to attempting to make out that I was doing something wrong by referring to my "hostility", something evidently present but clearly restrained whilst also perfectly warranted by the presence of two shouty beered-up morons attempting to break into the flat next door at half-past four in the morning.

I wasn't very hopeful that by repeating a few times that if they continued doing anything harder to the door than forcefully knocking on it (or similarly getting anywhere near risking damage to the window) that I'd tell on them to the police that I'd dissuade them from doing anything their piss-sloshing numptyskulls thought might be a fun idea. From behind the door the next twenty minutes featured them finding the cupboards containing my powertools, though only one was unlocked and there were not accessible power sources which would have allowed them to circular-saw their way into the flat (despite thinking that what they had found was an angle grinder). They also appeared to have found the draught-excluding rubber strip (which I can't fit back under the door until I've shaved a few millimetres off one end) which they apparently attempted to feed through the letterbox to try and somehow open the door. They eventually got the cells together to attempt to call a directory service to find a taxi number, but unfortunately initially chose to be put through with the result that they had to wait another ten minutes for the idea to come round again after the number ended up being engaged. They appeared to try to call back the other place they thought they might be able to crash only for the number to ring out so I was expecting them to end up attempting to go to sleep in the hallway when their protective booze-coating wore off sufficiently to allow them to realise that they were achieving nothing useful and ought to cut their losses, especially when they appeared to be keeping a remarkably accurate track of how long they'd been attempting to get into the flat. They had eventually succeeded in waking Nicky up but at least she was then able to hear them getting what sounded like the characteristic single-trill ring-back of the arrivèd taxi when I popped to the toilet, from which I could not hear them. After waiting a few minutes to confirm from the absence of sound that they were either gone or asleep (the distinct smell of booze drifting underneath the draught-excluderless door smelt too strong to be merely residual) I sneaked the door open and went to lock the outer door; if only my fuckwit side-neighbour had done this when he arrived I might actually have had some sleep in the preceding two hours.

Though then they'd have probably just rung our doorbell.